Michigan’s fruit belt has too many black bears. And they’re not just feasting on the sweet cherries that fill at roadside produce stands in the middle of summer or the apples that will start taking their place in a few days.

Worse than that, like an old-time Saturday moving cartoon, Michigan’s black bears have a special sweet tooth for honey. Unlike the cartoons, though, the honey doesn’t come from little clay pots.

It comes from the commercial hives that pollinate the fruit crops that provide farmers’ incomes and that sweeten pies. Black bears, like humans, are omnivores, which means they eat everything. Unlike human, everything in their case means raiding bears don’t settle for the honey in the hive — instead they use it to wash down the bees, brood, queen and everything but the wooden box they’re in.

We can’t afford to lose any more bees — literally.

About a third of the food we eat — vegetarians included — exists because bees pollinate the plants. About a third of the fruits and vegetables we eat are possible only because of bees. Honey bees contribute about $90 billion to the U.S. economy and colony collapse disorder already has contributed to increased prices for a number of commodities, from apples and oranges to tomatoes and cranberries.

But while bee numbers are collapsing, bear numbers in Michigan are on the rise.

That’s especially true in the northwest Lower Peninsula, where bear numbers are up 47 percent since 2000. They are 11 percent higher in the Upper Peninsula.

Why they’re up presents a bit of a conundrum for the Department of Natural Resources — it helped make the bear population increase.

The DNR is in charge of managing wildlife in the state, but it’s also in charge of managing its primary management tool — hunters.

When it comes to managing wildlife, it manages bears perhaps most closely of all game animals except maybe for sturgeon in inland waters. It sets tight limits and uses a complicated point system and lottery to award bear hunting licenses.

It has been using them lately to increase bear numbers because more bears mean better hunter success and better success sells more hunting licenses.

At least that is how it is supposed to work.

Instead, Michigan bear hunters appear to be going the way of the bees. After plateauing in the 2000s, there has been a steady decline in the number of bear hunters since 2008. Even as success rates climbed to the highest rates ever, the number of people chasing bears in 2016 was a little more than half as many who did so in 2008.

They honey bee problem has been studied extensively and scientists cannot agree on whatever it is that has some people using the word extinction.

Data on the disappearance of bear hunters is no less vague.

Some things are obvious — bear hunters are getting older. Median age last year was around 60. And because bear hunters — especially those using dogs — have a special knack for irritating the neighbors, it is getting ever more complicated for find a place to hunt bears.

That’s something for everyone who enjoys fruits and vegetables to consider before posting no-hunting signs.